Soviet Ski Team, 1940.
Single seat Il-2, straight wing. Easy meat for German fighters, led to the development of the Il-2m3.
A really nice kit, fairly innovative engineering but a straightforward build. Highly recommended.

Like it's builder (me), this model is an antique. It seems I've been going through a stage of doing old kits, that are fast and relatively easy. I've ignored my WWII Japanese and Soviet aircraft in the past, and I'm starting to fill that void[...]

This is the Tamiya 1/48th Ilyushin Il-2 Sturmovik
It's built straight from the box. The only addition was the pilots seat harness. All the paints used were Tamiya acrylics. The wing joint was so good, I painted the fuselage and wings completely [...]

This was one I finished in 2012. Not a bad kit, but the decals shredded so went to spares box. Also scratch built the oil cooler (at least I supposed that's what the cylindrical thing on the starboard wing is) and the tail counter weight, and a[...]

The Sturmovik was known as "flying tanks" to the Russian ground forces of WWII. Presumably built in greater numbers than any other aircraft, these planes made an idellible mark on their enemies. Heavily armed with cannon , bombs and rockets, s[...]

A couple of weeks ago, I was lucky enough to get to attend the Grand Opening of the Flying Heritage Collection's new hangar at Paine Field in Everett, Washington. Here are a few photos of the aircraft in that hangar. The newly restored Hellcat[...]

I recently did an in-box review of this kit for iModeler...here is the finished product.
The kit is engineered very well, as one would expect from Tamiya. Interestingly, I found the plastic to be slightly softer than what I am used to from the[...]

A few months ago, Tamiya released what is, most likely, the new standard for 1/48 IL-2 Shturmovik. The kit has thus been lauded for its engineering, beauty, and ease of assembly. There was also, as I remember, a bit of controversy regarding[...]

I saw a profile of this aircraft- yeah I know- you should use photos not someone's idea of a photo, but I couldn't resist- it was the only image I could find of a cannon toting IL-2!
I used Scale Aircraft Modelling's article on Shturmoviks a whi[...]